Hey everybody.. Semi-longtime lurker, first time poster..
I bought a fallow central Kentucky farm of about 25 acres almost a year ago, and I've spent that time getting equipment together, cleaning up, and trying to figure the best way for me to run cattle...
The farm is basically basically divided up between good fescue pasture and open woods. There's not enough room to cut hay, so if decided to overwinter animals, I'd have to buy it. I'm trying to avoid that -- at least in my first attempt with cattle..
I'll have to put up fences around two sides of the property, and I've pretty much decided to install Hi-Tensile myself. I have some fencing experience, decent tools/equipment, and some knowledge of Hi-T, so I should be OK there.. Going to go w/ a 6 strand set up, with three close to the ground in case I ever want to add goats to my lineup.. 4 hots, 2 earth gounds is the plan.
I have two barns, one for tobacco and one that was a stock/general purpose barn.. The latter has what I guess was used as a crowding pen and a working chute in one corner, minus the headgate.. It also has a crowding pen and a loading chute in the other corner... Both are very angular and small - they wouldn't flow well.. Each one affords cattle the opportunity to force you into a tedious game of whack-a-mole, which isn't good.. I could use either in a pinch, but I'd sooner tear all that out and start again with a good plan in mind to make better (safer) use of the space.. Since I won't raise any tobacco, the big tobacco barn will make one hell of an equipment shed and the stock/general purpose barn can become a DEDICATED stock barn. Maybe even with concrete floors someday..
As far as the cattle go, I'm planning on buying weanling steers in the spring, keeping them through the summer, and then selling in the fall. I think that's called backgrounding? Not sure.. I see it as selling grass as a value added product in the form of BEEF.
I know that spring is the most expensive time to buy, and that fall is the least profitable time to sell, but I don't see that I have much of a choice. I'm about 30 miles from either of two auctions that happen to be about 60 miles away from each other. I'm right in the middle.. One is more expensive than the other, so I plan to buy at the cheap barn and sell at the expensive barn, which might offset some of the seasonal difference.
Anyway, I'm thinking that since I have a total of 22 or so acres *available* to them (25 minus house/yard/barns/etc), I could get away with 10 or so steers.. I do have a pond also, and I think it would service 10 steers without much trouble..
My plan had been to get weanlings at about 400lbs, but what I'm seeing is that most cattle around here wean higher than that.. Like, 500-600lbs.. 350-450 are available, but I'm not sure what I'd be getting.. My guess is that they'd be jerked right off the udder and trucked to the auction, making for a very unpleasant transfer to my pastures.. Unhappy cattle aren't productive cattle, so I've learned..
I haven't developed any personal preference to breed, but I have worked a bit around Herefords.. They seem nice enough, I guess.. Not too crazy. Most everything else around seems to be some kind of Hereford cross... With steers, though, I'm not sure what reason I'd have to be looking too hard at breed.. I think I probably need to focus on the individual animals and how the individual would probably sell.. In other words, no oddballs..
Anyway, I just wanted to bounce all that off you folks.. Sorry for the uber-long first post. :lol:
I bought a fallow central Kentucky farm of about 25 acres almost a year ago, and I've spent that time getting equipment together, cleaning up, and trying to figure the best way for me to run cattle...
The farm is basically basically divided up between good fescue pasture and open woods. There's not enough room to cut hay, so if decided to overwinter animals, I'd have to buy it. I'm trying to avoid that -- at least in my first attempt with cattle..
I'll have to put up fences around two sides of the property, and I've pretty much decided to install Hi-Tensile myself. I have some fencing experience, decent tools/equipment, and some knowledge of Hi-T, so I should be OK there.. Going to go w/ a 6 strand set up, with three close to the ground in case I ever want to add goats to my lineup.. 4 hots, 2 earth gounds is the plan.
I have two barns, one for tobacco and one that was a stock/general purpose barn.. The latter has what I guess was used as a crowding pen and a working chute in one corner, minus the headgate.. It also has a crowding pen and a loading chute in the other corner... Both are very angular and small - they wouldn't flow well.. Each one affords cattle the opportunity to force you into a tedious game of whack-a-mole, which isn't good.. I could use either in a pinch, but I'd sooner tear all that out and start again with a good plan in mind to make better (safer) use of the space.. Since I won't raise any tobacco, the big tobacco barn will make one hell of an equipment shed and the stock/general purpose barn can become a DEDICATED stock barn. Maybe even with concrete floors someday..
As far as the cattle go, I'm planning on buying weanling steers in the spring, keeping them through the summer, and then selling in the fall. I think that's called backgrounding? Not sure.. I see it as selling grass as a value added product in the form of BEEF.
I know that spring is the most expensive time to buy, and that fall is the least profitable time to sell, but I don't see that I have much of a choice. I'm about 30 miles from either of two auctions that happen to be about 60 miles away from each other. I'm right in the middle.. One is more expensive than the other, so I plan to buy at the cheap barn and sell at the expensive barn, which might offset some of the seasonal difference.
Anyway, I'm thinking that since I have a total of 22 or so acres *available* to them (25 minus house/yard/barns/etc), I could get away with 10 or so steers.. I do have a pond also, and I think it would service 10 steers without much trouble..
My plan had been to get weanlings at about 400lbs, but what I'm seeing is that most cattle around here wean higher than that.. Like, 500-600lbs.. 350-450 are available, but I'm not sure what I'd be getting.. My guess is that they'd be jerked right off the udder and trucked to the auction, making for a very unpleasant transfer to my pastures.. Unhappy cattle aren't productive cattle, so I've learned..
I haven't developed any personal preference to breed, but I have worked a bit around Herefords.. They seem nice enough, I guess.. Not too crazy. Most everything else around seems to be some kind of Hereford cross... With steers, though, I'm not sure what reason I'd have to be looking too hard at breed.. I think I probably need to focus on the individual animals and how the individual would probably sell.. In other words, no oddballs..
Anyway, I just wanted to bounce all that off you folks.. Sorry for the uber-long first post. :lol: